Re-Designed My Blog, Thoughts? (13)
Hey guys,
I just re-designed my blog:
http://charlesfloate.co.uk
My theme, running on the Genesis platform:
http://my.studiopress.com/themes/metro/
Done a lot of edits to the CSS etc.. of the site as well. Still got a few more slight changes to make, but it's pretty much 95% done.
I'm using 27 different plugins, as well. You can use WP Theme Detector to check what plugins I use.
Would love to hear your feedback and suggestions ^.^
- Charles
mrgreen.am is an example of a perfect blog 
Create a personality along with the blog.
Initial, unfiltered thoughts:
I like your avatar
Theme is too plain for my liking
Nice logo
Nice font selection on post text, easy to read
More photos/graphics needed
Ugly nav bar / search a little redundant
Right direction, keep it up
I see you're building a list... I would feature that optin box a lot more prominently. Definitely above the fold and maybe even on the left instead of the right side. If you do it right, your list will make you most of your money I think! Read all posts by John Alanis on this thread:
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...-You-Invest-In
27 plugins is overkill imo.
Man hit up www.matthewwoodward.co.uk
One of the best AM blogs out there and touches again on what Snipe was saying about Mr.Green - Personality, one of the biggest factors in gaining trust of the blog visitor.
Congrats on the work so far.
Originally Posted by EoinF5
My old blog's design is based around his: http://godofseo.ca and I had a lot of input from him in 2013. This new design is done just by me, and aim is to have it loading as fast as possible, whilst delivering content in a more clear way.
Mr Green's blog does look SICK though! ^.^
Originally Posted by snipe
Create a personality along with the blog.Initial, unfiltered thoughts:
I like your avatar
Theme is too plain for my liking
Nice logo
Nice font selection on post text, easy to read
More photos/graphics needed
Ugly nav bar / search a little redundant
Right direction, keep it up
Theme is aimed at loading time and content clarity, how would I make it stand out more?
Thanks, I have a sick gfx design
Yeh, content clarity was a big aim..
Graphics on the posts or on the homepage? I have a fulltime designer that's amazing.
Yeh, I'm not too big a fan of the nav bar.. May change it, search bar gets used a LOT actually
Originally Posted by iAmAttila
The site still loads VERY fast though, I'm alright at speed optimization -
https://gtmetrix.com/reports/charles...co.uk/Yoh96hnO
When I move it to my VPS it'll be even faster.
Just a few things off the top of my head, from the first impression.
- If you're looking to get paid work off the blog, remove anything to do with your age. Being 19 years old will be extremely off-putting to many potential clients and business partners.
- You should push your facebook page with a social box on the right hand side. For sure you wont get my email, but a like from a vaguely interested user gets your content in their feed for life. Then once you have traction, start asking for an email in return for a special content gift. Managing and feeding an email list is a ton of work.
- I'm not really sure how to navigate your site. The menu bar options all seem quite specific and there isn't a clear option to get to the "blog", other than reading the homepage posts.
- I would consider launching your site under a brand, instead of your personal name.
- Not a fan of Godlike Marketing LTD as a company name, comes across a bit arrogant - but guess not much that can be done about it
Stop worrying about speed, plugins, hosting etc. It's all just a distraction from the hard slog of writing content. The ONLY plugin (1) you need installed is jetpack (activate Photon (free cdn), custom css (for very minimal changes), content form and Extra Sidebar Widgets (for the fb like box). NO OTHER PLUGINS NEEDED, less is more.
A site I see having potential in the future is Rohail's (http://suitcasemarketer.com/blog/), he has a very plain genesis based blog with just the stock theme and no extras. The site is bare bones, but the content is up to date and relevant. The blandless of the site is made up for with his personality on periscope etc.
Originally Posted by nickpeplow
I really missed the mark with that blog thing.. Need to get the pages fixed up ^^ ty
Hi Charles!
your blog starts to look so great !
some things that came into my mind form shortly reviewing it:
* as nickpeplow pointed you out, the navigation on the blog is not intuitive. since you write about many different topics and this is so cool !
in my opinion you should organize the content and the display/design so the users can easily locate the stuff they are looking for.
* consider to create a separated section, called for instance "About" and insert there "About me" info. This way you can make space for promotional contents to run various offers
* in my opinion, sections like "RECENT POSTS" or "GET MY FREE E-BOOK" should be located much higher on the page, possibly above the fold.
Wish you best of luck with your activity !
You should play more with the colors and try to add more elements on blog to make it more convincing. See I designed http://www.bloggingcage.com/ myself and it looks stunning.
It does look nice @Kulwantnagi
As we speak, I am:
- Editing the CSS on the "About Me" widget, as I wanted that to look more professional AND have a load of social icons where people can easily access my social.
There were a few people who suggested removing my age, but I'm sort of proud how much I've achieved without any real qualifications, and I like the brand of being an IM Whizz Kid that people share me as, it's good marketing :P
- Adding a section to the top of the homepage (under the menu) with a call-to-action, that I can easily edit. Still deciding on whether to have a CTA for email, ebook, social etc.. Not sure yet. Going with the suitcase marketer style though, that looks crisp and I already own the theme he's using, so I'm ripping that CTA box as we speak haha
I've also changed:
- Added a "Blog" page, and on the homepage put a "Go to blog" button under the featured posts.
- Changed some of the Menu options - Has anyone got any direct suggestions for this? I see that it's a bit bulky, and the font size/caps make it hard to add more words but not sure what I should make it look like.. Any examples?
- Made my landing pages (my books, introduction to parasite seo etc) full size, without sidebar.
- Added Facebook comments to non-post pages (Such as the What I Read page)
- Bought and installed KingSumo Giveaways (I got the Dev version of it) for my eBook landing pages, and future giveaways I'd like to hold.
- Added breadcrumbs to post pages, so it's easier for people to get around the site when reading my posts.. As most people will land on a blog post, and be interested that topic, they can go to the category page easier now.
- Updated several posts with links to my eBooks and other pages like my What I Read page - Funnel more traffic around the site, my bounce rate is already insanely low:
I'm also using a pretty cool commenting system, and I've edited the color scheme etc.. for it to match the blog, any feedback on this? - http://charlesfloate.co.uk/destroy-f...tors/#comments
In regards to the menu, as I've only recently transferred from my old domain to a completely new brand, I haven't got that much content out yet.. So I'll have a lot more options once I put out some bigger pieces.
I'll also add an about me page, but I am working on having a really cool timeline concept of my life, and it won't be ready for a while ^^
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